Nurdle Spill Bedevils Anacostia

A sample of nurdles spilled from derailed
 train cars in Hyattsville, MD,

Chesapeake Bay Mag, Train Derailment Sends Tiny Plastic Pellets Into Anacostia River, Fueling New Pollution Concern

A train that derailed in the Anacostia River watershed on Sept. 23 introduced local officials to a source of pollution no one was quite prepared to handle: nurdles.

These tiny plastic pellets, each about the size of a lentil, are transported around the world as the raw materials of plastic production. At 1 a.m. on Sept. 23, during a tropical storm, a CSX train derailed, spilling an unknown quantity of the pellets from some of its 16 railcars.

The spill occurred in the stretch of tracks that crosses alternate U.S. Route 1 (Baltimore Avenue) on the south side of Hyattsville, Maryland, just outside the District of Columbia and less than a half-mile from the Northeast Branch of the Anacostia River. The nurdles were made of recycled plastic and were on their way to be turned into new products. A CSX spokesperson did not answer a question about where the shipment was headed or how frequently nurdles are transported through the area.

“This is the first time in the recent memory of our staff for dealing with a train derailment,” said Cindy Zork, communications manager for Hyattsville.

There were no reported injuries and, other than a small amount of diesel fuel, “no hazardous materials” released in the spill. The city closed the busy thoroughfare to traffic for two weeks, frustrating local drivers.

But, Zork said, residents were equally concerned about the tiny white nurdles that covered the ground nearby.

Most state and local governments do not yet have rules in place for monitoring, preventing or cleaning up nurdle spills, according to The Great Nurdle Hunt, a project of the Finland-based nonprofit Fidra that aims to end nurdle pollution worldwide.

“A spill is often an occasion of great confusion as local and state environmental agencies try to figure out who might be responsible for managing it,” the Nurdle Hunt website says.

California is the only state in the U.S. with a strong law regulating nurdles and marine plastics as a specific source of pollution, the website states. Other states have varied approaches to handling this emerging source of pollution. Many are developed on the fly after a spill occurs.

The Clean Water Act does provide some means for the federal government, under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to address nurdle pollution in waterways. But a legal overview published after the Hyattsville spill pointed out that nurdles aren’t federally classified as pollutants or hazardous materials, so no federal agency is expressly responsible for preventing or cleaning up the spills. Legislation that would require the EPA to prohibit the discharge of plastic pellets into waterways or during transport was introduced as recently as July but has not yet passed.

Most nurdle pollution is found on beaches, where the pellets wash in on the tide from faraway plastic production plants or ships that have spilled them.

I don't see a problem that can't be solved with some shovels and containers, and maybe a large vacuum cleaner couldn't fix. In the grand scale of Anacostia problems, this one is pretty minor.